Coke reports revenue growth for first time in 9 quarters

Coca-Cola on Wednesday reported a rise in revenue for the first time in nine quarters, helped by a 6 percent rise in revenue from North America, its biggest market.

The company is in the middle of a transition year, and investors should see acceleration in volume growth as Coke continues to take out costs and invest back in its brands, said Nik Modi, consumer analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

"Going back a couple of years, Coke cut marketing spend when currencies really started to get bad, and they're just rebuilding their marketing budget now. Usually it takes 1½ to two years to get a full return on that spend," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

The world's largest beverage maker's shares rose more than 1 percent in early trading Wednesday to $41.30.

Net income attributable to shareholders fell to $1.56 billion, or 35 cents per share, in the first quarter ended April 3, from $1.62 billion, or 36 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the company earned 48 cents per share.

Net operating revenue rose 1.3 percent to $10.71 billion.

Wall Street forecast Coca-Cola to report earnings of 42 cents a share on $10.66 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

Coca-Cola stock has been trailing that of its rival PepsiCo in the last year. During that period, Coke stock was flat while Pepsi stock rose 12 percent.

RBC has a price target in the upper $40s on shares of Coke, Modi said.

"We think Coke is a good 12-month opportunity," he said.

Modi does not own shares of Coca-Cola. RBC Capital Markets does not hold greater than a 1-percent share of the stock, and doesn't provide investment banking services to the company.

—CNBC's Katie Little and Tom DiChristopher contributed to this report.